Working Towards The Nine

I am moving closer to Build 009, but we
are not there yet. However, I wanted to bring out a couple of feature
adds that are coming up with Build 009 - Because I am excited about
them and I want to give you a heads up!

The first is Unit Set Modification
Asset Directories. It has become very evident to me that those
working on unit sets really want to do more and add images and sound
to their mods. However, the idiot that wrote the game did not take
this into account, and made the modification of images and sound on a
global level, not specific to any one Unit Set. This made the sharing
of unit sets more difficult when such things were needed.

To resolve this, each unit set will now
have an assets folder, where the unit set maker can place images and
sounds (unit name files as well) to augment the unit set. Then the
new unit set can be sent to others simply by zipping up the core data
file for the set and the asset directory. It will make sharing and
distribution much simpler.

The second feature, but certainly not
the least as you can tell by my in-game announcement banner, is that
Build 009 will also have Map and Scenario sharing. This sharing will
be cross-platform and independent of whether you are using itch or
steam to play. The interface and method is very simplistic, but I did
not want to use something like the Steam Works API as it would
dissect the community between Steamers and Itchers, and the “C”
for combined in EDCE must have true meaning! So hopefully we will be
able to share map/scn creations this way.

Build 009 is now entering my internal
testing, but I doubt it will surface until next week. But as a slick
promotional trick I have already updated the online manual at
http://killerbeesoftware.com/edce/code/manual/EDCE.pdf
(Itch users should also have the updated file in their accounts). The
write ups are not that exciting, but the Unit Set asset description
is around page 106, and info an a couple of screen shots are
available around page 98.

My hope is these two feature additions
will help facilitate more sharing within the community. I see some
pretty interesting stuff being formulated. Let us in on the fun!

--Mark

PS:

(there is another small, but new
feature hidden on one of the Production Dialog
screenshots/descriptions).